Financial markets shrugged off a four-hour blackout that hit downtown and Western Toronto on the hottest day of the year.
The outage hit at 4.45pm, prompted by a fire at a Toronto transformer station. Air con units cut out, traffic lights failed and trading screens went black amid soaring temperatures and high humidity levels as downtown workers flooded the city streets.
Shaun Osborne, chief currency strategist at TD Securities, a unit of Toronto-Dominion Bank told Reuters the outage had little impact on markets, due to the late hour and following the close of equity and debt markets. The markets were also uncommonly quiet due to the neighbouring US Independence holiday.
"It's not the entire floor. Some people have lost power and other people haven't. We're probably pretty lucky in that it's a quiet afternoon," Osboren told the wire.